Halo at Shadow's
by Deadly-Bagel
Summary: Shadow realises he is not the ultimate being after all, finding a flaw in his design. Trying to correct it, he brings everyone closer. I tried to get the personas similar to what they should be. Oneshot. First attempt at a Sonic fic


Endless wasteland. Barren dunes, letting off wisps of sand to the parched wind. Not a living thing to be seen for miles.

The desert.

A blue streak flashed across the dry sand, sand billowing up behind it. On and on, faster and faster, nearing the speed of sound. Until-

_Boom_

A shockwave emanated from the blue object as it broke the sound barrier. Sand kicking up behind it, it kept going faster and faster, leaving a trench in it's wake.

A small lizard was digging for water near a clump of weeds as the streak passed it. It's small mind had time to register confusion before it was assaulted by a sandstorm, but before the lizard could bury itself for shelter, the wind just…stopped.

'YAAAAAHOO!!!' came the delayed noise, the lizard diving into the sand again. It did not surface.

Sonic's eyelids were plastered down by the wind, only his strong determination keeping them open to bare slits. Not that there was much to see, or have to dodge.

He liked running in the desert. Nobody complaining about sonic booms disturbing their quiet, or dust clouds consuming houses. The sand had taken some getting used to, but now it came naturally. Keep lower, plant toe of shoe in sand and push at a thirty degree angle down from the level of the sand. Repeat several hundred times a second.

* * *

Amy Rose was looking dreamily out the window when he returned. Even though he was traveling too fast to make out anything, she caught the distinct colour of sand from the desert, miles to the east.

She had been staring for hours, deep in thought, ever since she had heard his unique footsteps past her house. His fast, precise footsteps, sounding more like a machine gun than someone running.

The pink hedgehog sighed, losing her train of thought on her latest plan to capture Sonic's heart. She always thought up plans in her spare time, but they always turned into a fantasy of Sonic falling for her, then she forgets what she planned.

They probably wouldn't work anyway, she comforted herself. He was too dark and strong to be impressed by anything she was capable of, and she didn't want to torture him, pretending to be someone else, then come and rescue him. She was too moralistic for that.

So she absent mindedly fiddled with a rose growing just outside the window as she started on another pointless scheme, starting with presenting Sonic with a plate of chili dogs…

* * *

Tails was sitting in a large tree, high above the ground. He enjoyed the thrill of flying to the lowest branch, then flitting up as high as he dared to go. Today, he was nestled in a rather large pine tree, gently swaying with the breeze, at least a hundred meters off the ground.

Although he had never told anyone, the fox considered himself a psychiatric of sorts. He was probably better at reading and understanding emotions better than anyone else in their quiet village, and had more than once perceived an emotion of his own that he did not realize he was feeling.

Such as the tree he was in now. He liked to think it was the thrill of getting up, but it was probably also because there was something dark and mysterious about being perched in a tree, which he liked to think of himself as. And that he was trying to get away from everyone.

Because they all thought he was a kid.

Essentially, he was, but he had had it with being treated like a baby. No, he didn't need Sonic to take him into the forest to gather food, he could get it himself. The only reason Sonic didn't know Tails could take care of himself was because as soon as a threat emerged, Sonic took it out before Tails could blink. That and Sonic wasn't known for listening.

Scanning the ground below like a bird of prey, he picked out Amy fidgeting with a rose through her window. The settling dust leading to Sonic's house was self explanatory. Tails' hawk-vision focused on Amy's dreamy face, barely perceptible from so far away, and smirked. She had pretty much skipped her 'diabolical plan' phase and gone straight to the 'deranged fantasy' phase. He could tell by the way she was smiling goofily instead of wickedly.

Amy certainly was a strange character.

'Just like me,' Tails said aloud.

* * *

Shadow shook his head with an eyebrow raised, hearing the out-of-context words. Unbeknown to Tails, Shadow was in the same tree, skillfully and delicately balanced on a mere twig, the trunk no thicker than a bottle cap. The people in this village were so out of whack, the dark hedgehog thought.

Amy was way too young for Sonic, yet she was head over heels in love for him. Sonic himself was a power-crazed lunatic, Knuckles was…well, a knuckle head, Tails had major issues, for example, he seemed to consider himself a Ninja. Cream was just a little kid, yet knew exactly how to effectively comfort Amy when Sonic broke her heart, which was often.

And Shadow himself…

Shadow seemed to be the only serious person in this village, with no apparent flaws. Sonic was only serious when someone's life was at stake, or there was food involved, Tails tried to be serious but didn't do too good a job, either overdoing it, or not enough, Knuckles was incapable of being serious, Cream was a kid, and Amy, well…

Shadow's eyes flickered, his train of thought derailing and bursting into flames. He was comparing himself to everyone else. How everyone else was inferior to him, all their flaws making them weak. This sent Shadow into a new train.

He was just criticizing everyone, not seeing their positive characteristics, something Shadow never did. This was a weakness itself, as in battle, he would often underestimate his opponent's strengths because he was concentrating on their weaknesses. It also meant he would never fit in anywhere. And that_ they_ weren't so inferior after all.

Sonic may not be the brightest, but he was faster than anybody else. Tails may have trouble believing in himself as he was, but he was the best mechanic around, rivaling Eggman himself. Knuckles was worse than Sonic in logical thinking, but he had incredible strength and determination. Cream may only be a helpless little kid, but her personality and attitude were enough to brighten even Shadow's day. Amy…

Shadow furrowed his brow and looked around for inspiration. Umm, Amy…was…

He laughed silently at his inability to think of something positive about Amy. Her voice was high and hurt Shadow's pitch-sensitive ears, her cooking was terrible, she was impossible to have a conversation with because her topics always included Sonic, she was terrible in battle...

Shadow chuckled to himself. Yes, it was evil to be laughing at something like that, but that was Shadow for you.

* * *

Tails nearly fell out of the tree when he heard laughter above him. It was deep, even chuckle, not something he had heard before. He raised an eyebrow when he spotted Shadow, perched on an impossibly thin branch, just a few meters above him. Why hadn't he spotted him before?

Because this was Shadow. Shadow was like a true Ninja, appearing and disappearing without warning or emotion, using his powers only when necessary, being so calm in the most chaotic situations. He was like a robot, a machine of war.

Shadow seemed to remember he was there, as he looked down, and Tails perceived him mentally smacking himself in the head.

Without warning, the hedgehog gave his foot a little flick, kicking the branch out from under him. He dropped all the way to Tails' branch, landing without sound or effort. The branch barely moved at all.

'Hi Shadow.' Tails did not expect an answer.

'Hi buddy,' came a delayed reply. Tails raised his eyebrow again. After another pause, Shadow continued. 'What ya doin' up here?'

Tails had never caught anything of Shadow's personality, perceptive as he was, but now, he looked…awkward. Like this was something he was experimenting with, trying something new.

He didn't actually know what he was going to say. 'I'm a Ninja' sounded goofy, 'becoming one with nature' was corny-

'You don't have to appear so dark, you know,' Shadow said suddenly. Caught by surprise, Tails glanced at him. He was his normal impassive self again, except that he was actually making conversation.

'But if I don't, then what am I? I'm just a little kid in everyone's eyes. I build planes, I can fix anything, I can fight better than most, yet I'm just a little kid.'

'Tails, consider your actions. You're hiding up here in this tree. Nobody knows you're here. They probably think you're inside playing ball or something. You don't appear dark to them. You try to be serious, but you end up looking like a kid impersonating someone. Sonic offers to go do something with you as a friend, but you act as if he is treating you as his son, who he has a duty to take care of, and he gets the impression you aren't interested in playing Halo.'

Tails bowed his head. 'Wow, I never realized…'

Shadow paused, thinking he may have been a bit hard on the fox.

He punched him on the shoulder. 'Buck up, buddy. I've seen you playing Halo. You could whoop Sonic's butt. He can't even finish Truth and Rec on heroic.'

Tails sniggered.

'I thought I was terrible because I couldn't get past those red Elites with Needlers on the bridge in Assault on the Control Room on legendary, but Truth and Rec on heroic…That's pathetic!'

'I've beat the whole thing without dying on legendary. Both games.'

'No way! I've never seen you even glance at it! I bet me and Sonic could beat you in multiplayer!'

'Oh really?'

'Yeah! I challenge ye!' Tails jumped up, threw his arms around for balance, then pointed at Shadow challengingly once he was steady.

Shadow couldn't believe what was happening. Tails hadn't been this open in a long time. But what was more astounding, was that Shadow was actually intrigued by Tails' challenge. He had barely interacted with anybody at all since he had come here, just the exchanging of necessary information and items. But did he really want to be part of this circus?

'Tails…'

Tails' pose dropped a bit, and his eyes looked down below.

'You know I'm going to kick your butt from here to next millennia, don't you?'

Tails practically exploded with excitement, yelling 'ALL RIGHT!!' and leaping off the branch, tails poised for flight.

'HOLD IT!' snapped Shadow, and Tails caught himself at the second after the last second, and in a leaping pose, comically dropped off the branch. Shadow grabbed his foot and lifted him back up.

'On one condition.' Tails cocked his head, upside down.

'We play on system link.'

'What? We only have one-'

* * *

Tails suddenly found himself in Shadow's house, right way up and standing.

'Oh…' Tails gaped, staring at the cupboard containing a huge widescreen TV connected to pretty much every gaming platform imaginable, with surround sound speakers positioned strategically around the room. A shelf to the side was neatly jam packed with games.

'Uh, Shadow, why have you been keeping this from us, where did you get it, and what exactly powers it?' Tails asked mechanically, practically melting with pleasure. The X-Box in the 'Games Shack' was powered by a water turbine, running from a small stream nearby. During particularly dry summers, the stream would slow, and the TV wouldn't work.

'A Chaos Emerald. I got it all from the Death Egg, including the generator.

'Aw, so we get a tiny little screen for the two of us, and you get this huge TV all to yourself?'

Shadow was practically glowing with self satisfaction as he strode towards the cupboard and dragged it to the middle of the room. Tails peered around, then bent down to pick up his jaw from the ground.

There was _another_ widescreen TV connected to all the consoles capable of system link on the other side of the cupboard.

'GODAMMIT SHADOW!' Tails yelled and bolted out to get Sonic.

* * *

Sonic was brushing the sand out of his quills with a grim face. The desert was awesome, but the sand got everywhere.

He shook himself out and strode over to the sink to run some water over his eyes.

After a quick shower, he lay sprawled on the lounge, quills uncomfortably poking through the tattered leather. Good defense, but absolute hell for everyday living.

He was just drifting off into sleep when Tails burst through the door and ran up, pulling him off the lounge to fall unceremoniously onto the floor.

'Sonic! ShadowwashidingtwoTVsandtwoX-Boxsinhishouseandwegottagokickhisbutt!'

Sonic's superior mind could come up with a single response that summed everything up.

'Huh?'

'Shaadoow waass hiiidiinnnggg twwooo-'

'Wait wait wait, start again'

Tails was getting frustrated, so he grabbed the hedgehog by the quills on the back of his neck and dragged him to the door, with a little discomfort on Sonic's behalf. Grabbing him around the waist with one arm, he flew him up to Shadow's residence, on the top of a small hill overlooking the village.

* * *

Amy was curious when Tails dragged Sonic out of his house and flew him up to Shadow's, once again losing her latest plot. What was this all about? Tails never did anything fun with Sonic, and Shadow never invited anyone over. Were they revolting against Shadow? What had he done? Nah, Tails and Sonic weren't the type to kick someone out if they didn't do anything. Okay, maybe Sonic was, but Tails wasn't.

Maybe Shadow was throwing a party? Unlikely. Shadow? Social? Amy giggled.

Well, whatever it was, it was none of Amy's business, which was just another reason to check it out. After she put some makeup on, of course.

* * *

Lying in the sun, enjoying the feeling of the heat seeping through his chest, Knuckles smiled as a butterfly jittered through the air and landed on the Master Emerald.

Although he didn't admit it to anyone, Knuckles loved nature. There was nothing better than to warm up in the sun in a field of flowers, allowing the soft twittering of the little birds lull you to sleep.

His peace was broken by the rumbling of his stomach. The red echidna frowned and looked at his chest, realizing it had been an entire hour since he had last eaten.

Reluctantly, he sat up and put a gloved hand on his hot face before getting to his feet, stretching, and leapt into the air.

Gliding down the mountain, he headed for his house.

* * *

Sonic's eye was still twitching after he had set up an account and was heading into the first round against Shadow. The nerve of him, hiding all this like that.

Tails was quite comfortably curled up in a soft armchair, tails wrapped around his wrists. He was in Halo mode now.

Sonic was lying uncomfortably on the ground, Shadow refusing to give him anything to sit on due to his carelessness with his quills. Shadow himself was lying back on a very comfortable futon, quills flattened against his back so they didn't puncture the spotless leather.

All three had voted on how to play. Well, it was an unspoken vote. Everyone knew the first mode to play was first-to-25-kills Slayer on Coagulation, then everything else.

Tails tensed and Sonic's quills rose as the loader reached 100, and the game begun…

* * *

Tails started just behind his base. Perfect. Running around the side and up the ramp, he picked up a sniper rifle and battle rifle from the roof before heading through the teleporter, ending up in the rocks near the center of the map. Poking around a tall rock after picking up an active camouflage, he zoomed in on Shadow's base with his sniper. He picked out the black and red Elite a second before his screen zoomed out to show a white line through his head, leading to Shadow's sniper. One point to BlackGod.

Sonic had started in the middle, and picked up the rocket launcher before heading for the shotgun at Shadow's base. Tails provided a distraction to dart out from cover towards the base, and picking up the shotgun on the way, cautiously sneaked up onto the roof of the base. A brief glance around revealed Shadow was gone, before the dark Elite whacked him in the back. Two kills for BlackGod…

By the time Amy had put some nice clothes on, fixed her quills, put on her best _what do you think you're doing_ face and was halfway up the hill to Shadow's, she could hear the thrilled shouts in amidst explosions and gunfire.

'Nuuuuu!' came Tails' voice.

'BOOM, SHAKALAKA!' came Sonic's energetic cry.

Then something totally new. A deep, hearty laughter that made Amy want to join in and laugh too, that rose from a chuckle until it was out of control. What on earth was going on up there?

Running the last fifty meters up the hill, Amy burst through the door, ready to pry whoever off whoever.

What she saw was some sort of game that Sonic and tails and Shadow were playing on two different TVs.

'Tails? What's going on?'

'Not now, Amy. Shadow's on 50 handicap and we've got his shield down. Sonic's dead and Shadow's got a rocket launcher and a sword and I've got a battle rifle. I need to find him and shoot him in the head and we finally get a kill!'

Totally baffled at Tails' explanation of what was going on, she looked at the screen. The bottom half was looking at a human sprawled on the ground with a black and red figure standing above it, a countdown at 7 in the middle. The top half was going up a ramp and along a walkway, with a gun covering a section of the half of the screen. There were various numbers and shapes in the corners.

Suddenly, the top half showed an explosion, and zoomed out to show some alien flying through the air. The noise from the speakers was deafening.

'NOOOO!' Tails yelled, literally on the edge of his seat, as Shadow laughed the mysterious laugh she had heard before.

Now she was really confused. She had no idea what Tails was upset about, nor what the idea of the game was, Shadow and Tails were actually interacting with each other and Sonic, and Sonic was on the floor while Shadow and Tails were on very comfortable-looking chairs. All three had very determined looks on their faces, and Sonic's quills were standing so high, he looked like a fuzzy ball. A particularly sharp, fuzzy ball with a grim face and controller in hand.

With nothing better to do, she pulled up a wooden chair and sat down neat to Shadow's futon, with a clear view of Sonic. Habit.

Trying to fathom the general gist of the game, she observed a reticle in the center of the screen precisely tracking the head of a human in some sort of blue, full body armor. The human suddenly tripped and fell over, and Sonic yelled in protest.

Then, from behind a crate, a small blue circle with a white aura flew in an arc and fell just short of the screen. The screen looked down, and there it was, fizzling on the ground. Shadow sighed as the object exploded, and the black and red character flew through the air.

Sonic's eyes went wide. Amy leaned around to see Tails, whose open mouth was transforming from a gape to a wide smile before yelling 'DA GRENADE MASTA!' and high-fiving an ecstatic Sonic.

Looking back at the screen, a table came up, displaying a 23 next to BlackGod, a 1 next to DeadlyFurball, and a 0 next to SpeedyBlu.

* * *

Realizing she wasn't going to ever understand the game, Amy put the chair back and surveyed Shadow's spotless home. He was actually quite neat. In fact, she couldn't find even a speck of dirt anywhere, and everything was at right angles. She carefully adjusted the chair exactly the way it was, and announced she would make supper for everyone when thy were ready.

Shadow tensed and died again, this time Sonic laughed uncontrollably, yelling a stream of slang in between HAs and high fiving Tails.

She opened the door to see Knuckles about to do the same, probably there for the same reason she had been.

'Oh, they're playing some sort of weird game. You might be interested,' she helpfully explained. 'I'm going to make some supper. Tell them I'll bring it up if Shadow doesn't mind.'

'…Right,' Knuckles said, totally confused until Amy got out of his line of sight towards the TVs. Eyes wide, he slowly walked forward, as if drawn in by an invisible force.

Amy shrugged and started walking, Knuckle's loud shouts joining the fray before it all started merging and became just muffled background noise.

* * *

Returning with a huge tray of plates of nachos, chili dogs and assorted nuts a few hours later, Amy was greeted with cheers from everyone, including Shadow, as they all scrambled up.

'FOOD!' Knuckles yelled as he leapt from the floor next to Sonic and started wolfing into some nachos. Sonic jumped up and moved so fast, his feet actually just skidded on the floorboards for a few seconds, before he pretty much just disappeared and appeared next to the chili dogs.

Shadow ran to the food, then stopped dead in his tracks. Eyeing everything, he hesitantly tried some nachos. After all, how can you mess up nachos?

_Just like that_ he thought, then went for an energy pack he made by the hundred, containing various diced fruit nobody else recognized and nuts he had gone to quite some trouble to get. Then some cake (this time he shared) that was definitely not made from flour, but was nonetheless very tasty and filling.

Everything was clean in ten minutes, then after a very serious Shadow pressed the point of everyone washing their hands, they got back to it, and the shouting continued. Amy left to do some cleaning after seeing Shadow's spotless house, but didn't' fail to notice how Tails seemed to have grown about ten years in the last twelve hours, and Shadow was actually socializing.

What was this all coming to?

* * *

The next day, Amy woke to a silent neighborhood. There was no shouting. No gunfire, no explosions. Peace and quiet.

Amy looked out the window to see Sonic's door still ajar, from when Tails had dragged him out. Sonic would have shut it.

After a breakfast of fruit and yoghurt, Amy again took the walk up the hill to Shadow's. She actually enjoyed the walk, and made a note to do more of it.

She quietly knocked and slowly pushed the door open, careful to be quiet.

Sonic looked up for a moment then back a the screen, his eyes half shut. Everyone looked very tired.

'Woo,' Sonic said hoarsely.

'Got him,' Tails agreed half heartedly, voice also very hoarse. Shadow wasn't much better, eyes as red as the streaks in his quills and only lightly holding the controller, as if it took so much effort to take a good hold. Which, in his current state, it probably would. Knuckles was battling just to stay awake and wasn't doing much in the game.

'My god, you guys stayed up _all night_?'

'Hehe, yeah…' Tails replied.

Amy shook her head. _Boys_.

'Hey, at least I had the thoughtfulness to turn it down.' Shadow gestured to the speakers, which were still emitting sounds of footsteps with the occasional gunfire and explosion, but not so they could be heard from even just outside the door.

'Well, you should get some sleep now. Then it'll be your problem when you can't sleep tonight,' Amy said with authority

'Yay, we can be noc…noct…noctal…' Knuckles groaned.

Amy huffed, strode over and flicked off the TVs and X-Boxes.

'Hey, what yoo doo thaaat…foorr…' Sonic said before nodding off, closely followed by Shadow, Knuckles and Tails.

Amy eyed Sonic, sleeping so peacefully, and snuck up to him. He normally slept like a rock that was hit on the head and knocked out, and now he was more tired than ever. This was the perfect opportunity to-

'Don' eben thig abou id,' Sonic mumbled before rolling onto his chest and tucked his legs and head in, his quills poking dangerously out.

Ah well.

She was about to leave when she spied Tails lying there, with his tails wrapped around him like a blanket.

Scowling at Sonic, she crept up to Tails and planted a kiss on his cheek before wrapping her arms around him. She enjoyed the feeling of his soft fur against her cheek, and he smiled, one of his tails lazily unwrapping itself and wrapping around her.

_Maybe Tails wasn't such a kid after all_ Amy pondered as she stroked his tail, observing his developed muscles, then unwrapped the tail and scratched his ear as a parting note before heading out.

Tails was truly asleep, as Amy knew, and was dreaming about a beautiful vixen who was kissing him and scratching his ears, wrapping her tails around him…


End file.
